VPR Cast 84:”Douchebaggery”

Welcome to our 84th mmo podcast at mmoSmacktalk.com! Yakkety Yak joins the cast talking DOWN Darkfall Online and re-living his time at mmo fascists dot com. Not to mention you will hear Ryan rail. So come on in and join us… press “play” now! Do it!

DISCLAIMER: We, at mmoSmackTalk.com are not responsible for erratic and or excited behavior as a result of this cast.

@Widunder: haha! You know, my natural state is a fairly happy one. I’m a lucky guy and I know it. But one thing that will often get me going is when somebody is an “IRL” dick. Add to that taking my site down without talking to me… that’s almost like stealing from me. 😀

No matter. That is a done issue and we have some sweet melodies for thine most precious ears upcoming. So stay tuned! AND THANKS FOR COMMENTING!

@Auzzers: Hey, I might have mis-articulated my intentions. What I meant is that there is a test that breaks down what type of a player you are based on the results (eg: 20% explorer, 30% killer, 40% socialiazer, 10% douche bag). Gamer DNA has one here: http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bartle-test-of-gamer-psychology

I’ve been listening to this cast in my car so my comments are going to be a bit spaced. The term Clan was popularized in FPS games, since FPS players are not “pussy D&D nerds” they belong to clans not guilds.

@Robbie: Lying is the intention to deceive. I could definitely be wrong about something that I said, but I’m not trying to lead anybody astray. haha 😀 BTW, I think you meant to post this within the cast 85 comments.

Also a bit Ed Zitron-ish. People need to understand that Darkfall has an enormous world w/ virtually no advertising made by a very tiny dev team and the game is still evolving, it takes time to understand why things work the way they do and for things to balance out, besides the fact that it is made for a niche audience to begin with.

For example, some people complain about arrows take a long time to craft and that it takes too long to loot a corpse but these are intended. What better time to ambush someone when they are busy looting a body? its intended to leave you vulnerable and it needs to last more than 1 second. Arrows take a long time to craft, providing more opportunity for raiding to be profitable. It used to be much more profitable raiding when magic took a long time to raise untill the players whined about grind and AV killed it :[

being able to loot that fast is cheating Ryan, there is a reason why it is disallowed.

@Burlar of the Turd: I hear you on the Eddy-Z comment, BUT one huge diff between Yak and Ed, is that Yak doesnt trash the game. He merely points out why it’s not for him.

RE loot macro and cheating: I think you are visualizing something in your mind that is not happening. My macro lets me loot faster than without it, but in no way am I instantly clearing mob/player inventory. Also, a loot macro is not cheating. Cheating is when you create an unfair advantage… I am doing no such thing. The tools to equalize the playing field here are free all over the internet. Am I playing outside the intention of the game? Perhaps, but cheating is awfully strong. Check this out, how many people have magic macroed? Would you call them cheaters? They used to be called cheaters, but AV at one point spread the word that attended macroing is okay… well, do you think that maybe looting a mob with my one for one macro is not a form of attended macroing? A real instance of cheating would be to hack the game to cause effects which are NOT possible by playing the game. Example: some dudes can manually loot very fast, some, like 90 year old women are very slow… is the faster guy cheating? Is he breaking down the code of the game to create an unfair advantage? No. Enter loot macro. Do they hack the game (most dont… mine doesnt)? How about creating a wall hack so that you can see through walls? In this instance is there a difference between the 20 year old gamer and the 90 year old woman? No. They both cannot inherently see through the wall. Now say the 90 year old woman creates a hack to provide her visibility through the wall. That, my friend, is cheating, because in this instance the 20 year old cannot possibly compete to see through the wall. HE cannot boost his RL skill to see better, move faster, etc. to compete. Therefore the 90 year old woman has a definitive unfair advantage. That, is cheating.

your definition of cheating is different than mine and I admit I may be a bit biased because I don’t use those tools although I will admit they do make the game easier to play and less tedious without being too advantageous. However, I consider cheating anything that breaks TOS and from what I understand these loot programs are not allowed and I think for good reason. I very often wait for the person I’m stalking to go to skin or loot the corpse and thats when I land that debuff right in the back and this is also one of the only way newer players can get kills on more developed characters.

It is really a mild form of what i would consider cheating in comparison with those cowardly, selfish D-bags cheaters you mentioned, like those who feel the need to see through walls, and I don’t look poorly at all upon people that use the loot macros or afk macro.

With this same logic, you could say that we should be able to craft bunches of arrows in a shorter amount of time, because, who wants to spend a bunch of time waiting for arrows to craft?

I know you will have a good argument argument to say that it isn’t the same but in some sense it is. I just like that it takes people a good while to loot a corpse, the longer the better, I guess. I understand you are saying it still takes a good while, I just didn’t like the advocacy of faster looting in any form.

@Lord Turd Burglar:
A. Thanks for listening, and thanks for the compliment.
B. I understand your arrow analogy, and you are correct that I dont see them the same. Your point, in a nutshell, I believe, is that certain things are supposed to take time in this game. I agree. You should hear me argue with Bob sometime… the good ones have not been recorded. Here is where I see the logical discrepancy in your arrow analogy:
-When looting tombstones players are not created equal. We all inherently loot at different speeds. This is not good or bad, just a fact.
-When crafting arrows we are all forced into speed compartments. The default speed with no/low Industry = x seconds, whereas those who have acquired character bound skills can craft them incrementally faster.

Those two facts are why I dont like that analogy. Despite our differences there, I most certainly do appreciate the PURIST point of view, that here is the game, play it as it is, and if you cant, you dont belong here. I see it, I hear it, and were it not for three basic points, I’d agree with it:
1.) I experience real life pain at times via the required drag and drop repetition.
2.) The impact of drag and drop on transferring crafted goods is tedious.
3.) I’m a casual player. Sometimes I just have an hour to play. I love the game, but I dont want to lose out on the fun parts do to the excesses of the tedious parts.

So, those three points summarize my primary reasons for my 1 to 1 loot macro. And I fully admit that my reasons are all about me, my pain, my wants. However, when taken into full consideration, I don’t THINK that they actively negatively impact other players. Remove me, and those like me, from the game, and the hot virtual sex that is Darkfall will become horrifically languid. With that in mind, might it not be a positive thing to let some people macro to small degrees if it keeps them active, thereby swelling the player base?

Overall, I dont look at this as a case of I’m right and my dissenters are wrong. Just my opinion, and admittedly a self centered based one at that.

well my point is that these are things that leave you vulnerable to attack and benefits pvp at the cost of tedium and I know its is just a very small thing but I wouldn’t like to see looting any faster than it already is. call me finicky.

I feel you on the repetitive stress injury thing. the alternative solution would be perhaps a one button click option that would loot a corpse on a timer or something of that nature. I’m for anything that reduces the amount of clicking as well as I get finger/join pain whenever I get a new game.